Alison giving the elbow to one of our hard working nurses.

Yesterday we had a wonderful massage therapist come into the office to give our staff 30 minute massages in celebration of Nurses Week.  Oh yeah, I sneaked in and had one too and it was great.  While having my back, neck and shoulders, arms and hands kneaded, pulled, rubbed and elbowed, I had a very nice chat with Alison the therapist.  She is a weight lifter and I had a lot of questions about the mechanics of power lifting, what she thought of body builders, strength training for the over 60 crowd (me, for example), dwarf throwing contests and a bunch of other stuff.  I was so impressed with her knowledge and explanations of how strength isn’t just from muscle bulk but also from neurons in the neuromuscular junction acting in a coordinated fashion, from muscle memory for some actions, from bone strength and angle and from mechanical advantage.  This lady’s b.s. meter was set at zero, just where I like it.

It was particularly nice to have this encounter because a few days earlier there was an article in the Seattle Times about craniosacral therapy which had my b.s. meter red-lining.  Nicole Tsong, who is a yoga instructor, has a nice weekly column about exercise, nutrition and other self care and I usually enjoy reading it.  But this past Sunday, yikes did she go off the rails.  Nicole’s treatment, basically a massage, sounded pretty standard and pleasant but then the therapist started talking nonsense.

Cut and pasted from the article:  Craniosacral therapists observe your cerebrospinal fluid, which moves in roughly eight-, 20- and 100-second cycles, Christman said. My flow was good from my tailbone up until she got to my left shoulder, she said, where the flow contracted. She could work on my connective tissue to help the fluid move, or manipulate the fluid to move back into my shoulder, she said.

Yes, this is a head rub and it feels great but she’s not manipulating your skull and she is not observing your cerebrospinal fluid. Just sayin’.

Christman had asked me before the session about head injuries, and I told her about a concussion I had in college. After working on my spine and pelvis, she moved to my head and started gentle pressure around my skull to manipulate the tissue and bones. I was already relaxed, and when she started to work on my head, I succumbed and closed my eyes, nearly nodding off.

Since this is my blog, I’m just gonna get this off my chest.   Cerebrospinal fluid (CSF from now on) sort of circulates and sloshes around in the ventricles of the brain, between the brain and the skull and in the center of the spinal cord but ………………… 8, 20 and 100 second cycles?  Why not 34 seconds or 82?    Hmmm.  It has been awhile since I took neruoanatomy but that sounds like b.s. to me.  Oh, and the therapist observes the CSF?  I don’t think so.  CSF can be observed when doing a diagnostic spinal tap or doing a spinal anesthetic or during brain or spine surgery or in cases of a skull fracture when CSF can be observed dripping out of ears and nostrils.  Methinks Ms. Christman was not really observing CSF in a therapy session.  But why would she say she was?  Oh, and then CSF in the shoulder?  Nope.  Not there.  There is synovial fluid in the shoulder joint but not CSF.  If you have CSF in your shoulder you should report of the emergency room … stat.

Now lets deconstruct that head rub that Nicole got.  God, I love a good head rub, don’t you?  But I know that a head rub does not manipulate the skull.  The skull does have joints (called sutures) but they fuse in early childhood.  The only way to move a skull around is with power tools and preferably in the OR with a neurosurgeon.

Nicole almost dropped off to sleep and maybe would have been the best way to avoid listening to this balderdash which is fancy word for b.s.

Thanks for reading!  And I would be honored if you followed me on Instagram @sowdermd and @breastimplantsanity.  Dr. Lisa Lynn Sowder